Backing Netflix executives' projections that “Squid Game” would be its biggest global TV series ever, TV analytics company TVision says the South Korean dystopian drama pulled in a massive 11% of all streaming time spent by U.S. viewers for the most recent weekend.
Recently, Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, said: “‘Squid Game’ will definitely be our biggest non-English-language show in the world.” The nine-episode series launched globally on Netflix, September 17.
“Squid Game” is a fictional series about a secret organization that lures contestants looking to escape hard-pressed financial situations by playing young children games for a chance to win almost $40 million. Losers can suffer horrific consequences.
Far behind in second place -- for the period of September 30 through October 3 -- were reruns of the HBO series “The Sopranos,” which ran on Amazon Prime Video and HBO Max -- getting a 2.1% share of streaming time spent. This past weekend, a “Sopranos” prequel film “The Many Saints of Newark” debuted in theaters and on HBO Max.
advertisement
advertisement
After the “Sopranos,” Apple TV+ “Ted Lasso” was next at 1.9%. Netflix’s “Grey’s Anatomy” was at 1.5% and Netflix’s original series “Sex Education” saw a 1.4% share.
The numbers for “Squid Game” were the highest on Friday and Saturday (October 1 and 2), which took in 40% of streaming view time.
TVision gathers data from a panel of 5,000 U.S. homes, and 13,000 people, demographically representative.
It uses automatic content recognition (ACR) technology and “computer vision” technology to track second-by-second how viewers watch TV, with their eyes on the TV screen.